His name is Sheldon Oliver. Some of you might know him, and some of you might not. He’s a Junior here at North High. He’s only 16 years old, yet he is one of the many students who suffer from depression at this school.  

Students like Sheldon Oliver also have trouble talking to therapists or counselors due to a lack of trust in adults. This makes staff members like Montez Anderson important.  

Anderson is a campus monitor at North High and he is beloved by many of the students. There isn’t anywhere he can go without someone knowing his name. It isn’t uncommon for students to go to him for advice or just to talk.  

Oliver suffers from depression, anxiety, dyslexia, ADHD and OCD. He was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD in elementary school and then went on to develop depression and anxiety in middle school.  

“When you’re having an anxiety attack or are really depressed and someone says or does the wrong thing, it becomes hard to focus. Occasionally you even have to leave class,” Oliver said, referring to how hard it can be to focus in class when your mental illnesses are pressing down on you.  

According to Orchard Place’s organization website, one in five teenagers suffer from clinical depression. Even with this number on the rise as more and more teens develop mental illnesses, there is still a decline on mental illness hospitals.  

An article called Not Enough Beds for the Mentally Ill on MSNBC’s website states that between 2002 and 2011, the number of hospital beds in freestanding psychiatric hospitals has dropped by 13 percent. “Parents who try to admit their mentally ill children often get turned away, and most of the time the child ends up committing suicide,” it reads.  

This is an extreme problem, as mental illnesses often take more than just medication you can take at home to cure. The lack of funding in these hospitals can cause people to lose their lives, but yet they still continue to defund them.  

“In the aftermath of the 2008 recession, states were forced to cut over $4 billion in public mental health funding,” according to the New York Times’ article called We Need Better Funding For Mental Health Services. So why hasn’t the funding been put back into helping this disease? “Several times the mental health industry has been promised more funding that hasn’t been received,” the Times article said.  

Even with all these stats and numbers, there still remains the problem that most teens with depression don’t talk to anyone about it. They close up to everyone and not even their friends can see that they need help.  

Julie Charikov, a school counselor at North High, is another trusted adult at this school. “There are lots of causes for mental illnesses, some are just genetic and they are in your family makeup. Some are just caused by stressful life events and can cause anxiety or depression, and some are caused by substances,” she said.  

“There’s a stigma with mental illness that you should be able to control it and you should be in charge of your mental health and it’s silly because if you were to get cancer – рак печени you would go to the hospital and get treated because you were sick. A mental illness is just an illness of the brain and you just can’t control it,” she added.  

“You are not alone and it is ok to speak out and tell someone about your problems. People do care.” Wise words from Oliver, a 16 year old North High student who is the same as everyone else, mental illnesses or not.